And All The Stars A Grave.

by Greg Curtis

  “I suspect at that point the caretaker or caretakers then dealt with the last of their fallen friends, painted or engraved the final details in the chapel, activated the city’s defences, and then left to continue on the journey, because they too were surely dying, and we haven’t found any sign of their bodies. But at least they knew that their people had been properly tended to, and their remains were as safe as they could make them for eternity.”

  “As to how vicious the disease or whatever it was that was killing them was, the size of the city itself is powerful testimony to it. At least half a million Calderonians could have lived and died there. And they were only the ones that actually survived the first leg of the journey to die on QA 40. Surely many, many more died during that first year of travel, and were probably cremated, entombed or buried there when they arrived. And with so many children among the painted ceilings of that world, I suspect the next cities as we carry on, will be far larger. And probably better defended.”

  “Somewhere in that city is a graveyard, or its equivalent. A graveyard that was so important to their people, that they left their mechanical servants to guard it faithfully for all time. Just as the pyramid makers of Earth wanted none to disturb their pharaoh’s final resting place, the Calderonian people’s final resting places cannot be allowed to be disturbed. Maybe that graveyard is in fact the entire city, or maybe it’s just a small part of it. I don’t know. But I do know that we don’t have to find it. It’s not our goal.”

  “What we have done so far is basically to rob their graves. And the guardians they left recognised us as grave robbers, and treated us accordingly. Only a true Calderonian can return to those places in safety. Only one would either know the codes to pass safely, or else be identified by the guardians as worthy to walk among their honoured dead.”

  “One thing else I know though. Our next goal. And if you think about it, so do you. The Calderonians were on a journey that they had to make. Their whole race. And they knew that more and more of their people would perish during it. Many many more. And I suspect they still didn’t have a final destination, only a direction, which is why we only have the first stop. They couldn’t tell their people who they hoped would follow, where they would end up, only the places they would stop along the way. So while they were building their hospice on the third planet of QA 40, they were also selecting the next one. And leaving a record behind for any of their people who one day decided to follow them.”

  “Somewhere on that world, in that city is their next destination. Not for us to find. But for any of their own people who stayed behind, but who one day might wish to follow their path, assuming they survived. Or for any who reached the end and found their cure, to one day retrace. To go back to their roots and remember their ancestor’s journey.”

  “That knowledge could be buried in the music box somewhere, but I doubt it. Unlike the computer of Calderon Six, it’s artistic rather than technological. The amphitheatre is hand crafted, but not a fortress in its own right. It’s obviously of enormous spiritual and artistic value to them, but not technological. My guess would be that somewhere else in the city is another fortified underground chamber, with a fully loaded computer in a hermetically sealed environment, which only another Calderonian could find and operate.”

  “It will have not only all the information that the one on Calderon Six had, but also an update on their condition, the latest results of their research into the Ancients, and their next destination,”

  “But to find it, we’re either going to have to think like a Calderonian. Or start re-examining the site, millimetre by millimetre.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You haven’t got an atom of proof -” The ten or fifteen seconds of shocked silence that had passed after he finished speaking, had quickly been breached. And once the first one started there was a general outcry as so many researchers discovered their pet theories were untenable. It soon turned into a free for all, such as the earlier meetings had been. But this one he knew, had a whole world of researchers looking on. No doubt many of them felt the same, but couldn’t get a look in.

  In time the Chair managed to control most of the loudest shouters, enough so that he could get a few questions through. But each one seemed to come back to some form of insult about his human ancestry. Which Daryl didn’t actually mind that much. He’d been getting used to it over the long months of travel, and quite frankly any question that could have actually thrown some doubt on to his theory would have been far more upsetting to him. But of course there were none. If only because he had successfully woven practically every major finding they had of the Calderonians into a single thread. Something that no one else had done.

  He answered those questions he could, or at least those that weren’t essentially an attack on his ancestry, and let the Chair handle the rest.

  Half an hour later, when it looked as though the shouting wasn’t going to die down, the Chair took the only option left and closed the meeting early. That too was fine by Daryl. He was getting tired anyway, and the more chance the others had to cool down, the more likely it would be that they’d find either some truth in his theory, or some constructive criticism.

  Besides, he knew he wanted to get some sleep soon. In the morning his favourite doctor would hopefully be by to remove his bandages, and he’d be seeing his new skin for the first time. No doubt she’d also be giving him grief for his conversation with his Regularan nurse.

  It was likely to be a good day.

  Chapter Ten.

  Unity was like nothing Daryl had imagined. Not that he’d really given the world much thought at all. He had far too many other comets to hurdle.

  Like trying to answer the hundreds of abusive messages he got every day from upset scientists, while putting his theory of the Calderonian journey into a more coherent thesis. And trying to learn more about the bombing of New Eden, while simultaneously avoiding the human diplomats on the planet. Politicians to a man, they all knew he was responsible for the human wide announcements that had been broadcast to their people, and they wanted answers, and maybe blood as well. Then he was also trying to help the engineers and technicians put the Sparrow back into some sort of shape for their eventual return to QA 40. And trying to make heads or tails of the Edenites, and how he could possibly fit in with them in his new alien home, because the one thing he was certain of was that he was never returning to Earth. Against that, being on an alien world, even one as important as the capital of the Interstellar Community Council, didn’t rate.

  He often felt like he was being pulled a hundred different ways at once, and more often than he cared to admit, it was too much for him. So he gave in to the need to just take some time out, find a quiet spot all to himself and try to hibernate until the spring. If this world even had seasons.

  Life was hard these days. Especially when not a single scientist could treat him with a modicum of respect. Instead it was insult after insult, as he apparently trampled over their pet theories one by one. But thus far, not a one had been able to shake his hypothesis. In fact they’d only strengthened it. Each and every objection they raised he could either answer, or find a way around, and when they gave him their alternatives he secretly enjoyed pointing out the flaws in them. Of course, even if they didn’t realise that he enjoyed it, they didn’t like having their theories quashed, and within a very short time, even the most polite would begin calling him a human savage or worse.

  Naturally he had put all their names and challenges, the legitimate ones, into his paper which was now a full online continually updated holobook in its own right and very popular with both the scientific community and the masses, if only so he could record for posterity that they were wrong. Sometimes you have to take satisfaction in the most petty of things. Besides, after careful vetting by the Force, his paper was being made available to Earth as well, and he suspected many of his fellow researchers would also be crowing silently as they watched many of the Community’s most important scientists being shot do
wn by a mere human. Quietly of course.

  He was also homesick. More so than he had ever been in his entire life. He told himself repeatedly that he was just being silly. He’d been away in different parts of space before for even longer than he’d been away this time. But it wasn’t enough. It was just that every other time he’d gone away, he’d always known he was going back sooner or later. Once he’d finished his work, completed his dig. But now he knew that wasn’t a possibility.

  Buried in his mind was detailed knowledge of many of the Force’s technological secrets. With what he now knew, he could advance human knowledge at least a century. Yet he also knew he couldn’t afford to. If he did, he placed the Earth and humanity in great peril. Even if he didn’t but others thought he had, the same was true. Something neither he nor the Force could allow. Which meant that even if the Force one day let him return, he couldn’t allow himself to go. Like it or not he was never going home.

  He could at least make calls home to his family. Calls that were still monitored at both ends he suspected. On his end the Force were determined that no contraband information should be transmitted to his people. On the other end Earth Fleet was determined to know what he knew, and even more desperate to find out why he’d begun this entire witch-hunt with New Eden. They still didn’t know about the Edenites, and mostly tended to think of the entire thing as some sort of alien plot, just another way of justifying their oppression.

  It was frightening. Not so much because of their attitude. He’d expected that, just as he’d realised there would be few people alive if any, who knew of the attacks. It was mainly frightening because after more than three weeks of research, apparently the millions of snoops who’d surely started investigating it, had given up. Even with all the information the Force could give them, and total access to human records - Earth Fleet had apparently demanded that for all citizens - they still didn’t know who had carried out the attack let alone who had ordered it. It was only seventy years old, not seven hundred, and yet he could probably find out more about the people who had died in the hundred years’ war on Earth than he could about New Eden.

  Of course it had all been made worse when Earth Fleet, having examined the Force’s records in detail, had turned around and told them they were forgeries. It was all some sort of hoax. The ships in the picture might be ancient human cruisers, but they had no registry numbers. Which wasn’t surprising. In their position he’d have removed them too, just in case. Moreover the fleet had somehow managed to account for every single cruiser they’d had at the time, and knew it couldn’t be any of them. And finally they still had the faked records from the New Eden colony themselves which were very persuasive, and still being played nightly.

  To push the argument back to Earth Fleet and the others, he desperately needed the support of the Edenites. Show a few or preferably a lot of them on the holo one evening, and the case was almost won. They were the proof. But the Edenites had other ideas. First they wanted nothing to do with Earth and humanity, which usually included him. They didn’t even want them to know that they had survived, a position he could understand. As an off-world human researcher in an alien universe, paranoia was ingrained in him. Second, many of them clearly believed the whole witch-hunt was just another cruel attack, orchestrated by him, to ridicule their suffering and clear his people.

  In short everybody hated him.

  Even his cat was abandoning him. Scratch, who he had always thought of as his loyal companion, had taken to wandering around the Targ, and mixing with all the strange people she met. Apparently they kept giving her food. As a result he was lucky to see her even once a day, and then often only if he asked politely over the ships comms if anyone had seen her. She was busy finding herself a new home.

  Throw into that the fact that his new skin itched abominably and peeled daily, and had done for three full weeks with no sign of letting up. The reality that his doctor had abandoned him, though she still saw Scratch. In fact that was where he suspected the cat was heading to every day. To get some food and play with Tigger. That his ship was no longer his ship. It was part of the Targ. That nearly everyone on this accursed planet seemed to know him. And despise him. He was both famous and hated. That Doctor Li, a far from happy person, had found out somehow about the details of his crime, his attempt to pass information back to Earth, and was now asking, together with Helos, for him to be charged by the Interstellar Community instead of just the Force. Put all that together and his life was a true black hole.

  Actually though, that last was actually almost amusing. The scientists really didn’t like him. So much so that they’d actually work together if only to get him sent to a penal colony. He wasn’t sure, but some days he could almost find the humour in bringing such angry people together.

  Still, life had not been fun for some time.

  What he needed he guessed, was some sort of project he could work on and have some hope of finishing. Something he could actually devote some time and effort to and not have it thrown back in his face. Or perhaps a holiday. A nice sun soaked beach stay on an island with pretty girls in grass skirts. He wasn’t going to get any of them though. Instead, he chose a park bench, designed for heaven only knew what sort of alien creature, facing strange looking blooms. It was the closest he’d come to a holiday that day, or any other. It wasn’t the first time he’d been there, feeling sorry for himself.

  But at least it was something he could understand. A park. A place where couples necked, assuming that the people actually formed couples or had necks, a place where plants ruled and workers could come and enjoy their lunch in some peace away from the more hectic city. Some of the plants even looked like Earthly plants, complete with green leaves and flowers, especially the ones near this particular bench. And their bouquet while strange, wasn’t completely unpleasant. Provided he didn’t look too closely, he could almost imagine himself somewhere on Earth.

  “Citizen Chalmers.” Daryl looked up in surprise at the voice, shocked by the thought that somebody - actually anybody - knew let alone would use his correct name. Naturally it was a robot. He should have guessed.

  “Mmm?” He nodded to it, though why he didn’t know. It surely wouldn’t have understood the gesture.

  “You are required to follow me to the Council Chamber.” And without any more than that the contraption floated off, while he had to scramble to his feet and hurry after it. Not only because it, whatever it was, sounded official, but also because he had no idea at all where the Council Chambers were. He hadn’t even realised there were such things on Unity.

  Fortunately it wasn’t particularly fast, floating at only normal walking speed, and he caught it up without problem. On the other hand the machine was no born conversationalist. Most questions, such as why he was required or even when, drew either no response at all or a repeat of the same demand that he follow it to the chambers. It got tiring after a while, and he just gave up asking.

  The robot itself was one of the thousands he’d seen floating around the city. No legs it was just a blob of metal that floated above the ground, with two metal arms, and a pair of swivelling metal eyes. At first they’d been a little unnerving, but in time he’d gotten used to them. So much so that he could now pass one in the street without staring - much.

  The machine took him to a part of the city he hadn’t seen before. A part that actually looked more human in its architecture, and he almost had the hope that it was taking him to see the Edenites. Straight walls on buildings instead of every wavy line imaginable, windows that looked exactly like those found on any house, even normal opening doors. It surely had to be human territory. But then again, he noticed, many of the doors were too small. Regularan perhaps. Besides, none of the people he passed were Edenites. Most were Regularan or other aliens of diminutive size. Many of them stared at him, and he guessed they recognised him as a human, maybe even as the one on the nightly news. Some even crossed the street to avoid him, another sign of his enormous popularity here.


  The chambers themselves though were quite different in character to anything else he’d seen on Unity. From the front they looked a little Roman, with a dozen great fluted pillars leading to a two-story staircase as wide as the building itself. But no pillars ever built by the Romans, had extended fifteen stories high - and in fact were much taller than the building itself - or been made of glass. Neither had the Romans invented low gravity staircases. And the aliens sitting on it, eating their lunch, had never been near that part of the galaxy.

  The front of the building itself was more typical of the advanced alien architecture he’d seen elsewhere on Unity. It was a ten story high wavy brick. Some sort of white material, almost like marble but far smoother and brighter, that had been shaped like a jelly mould gone bad. Maybe the shape would mean more to one of the great races, but to him it looked like a puddle that was somehow holding itself together.

  Inside he was taken down a long wide corridor to one of the rooms at the end, where more of the alien robots were waiting for him. Not, he realised, a living breathing creature among them. And that fazed him for a few seconds. Where were the people? Or if there were none, why would robots summon him? But perhaps the people were coming.